Why We’re Talking About the Village People in 2025; Is California Starting to Capitulate to Trump? Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Jan. 16, 2025

Indy Digest: Jan. 16, 2025

It’s 2025, but nothing makes sense anymore, and therefore, the Village People are back in the news.

The Associated Press reports:

Country music star Carrie Underwood will perform “America the Beautiful” at Donald Trump’s inauguration next week and the 1970s hitmakers Village People will perform at two inaugural events.

Underwood, who launched her career on “American Idol,” is to perform shortly before Trump takes the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, according to a copy of the inaugural program provided to The Associated Press on Monday.

“I love our country and am honored to have been asked to sing at the Inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event,” Underwood said in a statement Monday. “I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future.”

American disco group the Village People made a name for themselves in the late-70s for their chant-along dance-pop hits and their colorful on-stage personas. Their best known hit, “Y.M.C.A.,” is widely considered a gay anthem—and became a staple of Trump’s rallies in the last election, along with their hit “Macho Man.”

The American disco group is set to perform at one of Trump’s inaugural balls and a rally he’s holding in Washington the day before he’s sworn in.

Carrie Underwood is at least giving lip service to the concept of unity (despite the president-elect’s innumerable efforts in the other direction). In a Facebook post, so did Victor Willis, the lead singer of the Village People:

We are announcing today that VILLAGE PEOPLE have accepted an invitation from President Elect Trump’s campaign to participate in inaugural activities, including at least one event with President Elect Trump. We know this wont make some of you happy to hear however we believe that music is to be performed without regard to politics.

Our song Y.M.C.A. is a global anthem that hopefully helps bring the country together after a tumultuous and divided campaign where our preferred candidate lost.

Therefore, we believe it’s now time to bring the country together with music which is why VILLAGE PEOPLE will be performing at various events as part of the 2025 Inauguration of Donald J. Trump.

Even though the Village People have long been seen as gay icons because of … well, everything about them, at least the band is talking the talk about unity. Right?

No, not really. As other media outlets pointed out, in a early December post, after talking about how much money Trump’s use of the song “Y.M.C.A.” had brought him, Willis had this to say:

There’s been a lot of talk, especially of late, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem. As I’ve said numerous times in the past, that is a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life.

This assumption is also based on the fact that the YMCA was apparently being used as some sort of gay hangout and since one of the writers was gay and some of the Village People are gay, the song must be a message to gay people. To that I say once again, get your minds out of the gutter. It is not. …

Therefore, since I wrote the lyrics and ought to know what the lyrics I wrote is really about, come January 2025, my wife will start suing each and every news organization that falsely refers to Y.M.C.A., either in their headlines or alluded to in the base of the story, that Y.M.C.A. is somehow a gay anthem because such notion is based solely on the song’s lyrics alluding to elicit activity for which it does not. However, I don’t mind that gays think of the song as their anthem.

It’s worth noting that the current version of the Village People came about only after many years of ugly, protracted legal battles between Willis and other band members, including a couple of other original members, including Felipe Rose (aka “The Indian”). Willis ultimately won control of the band, and here we are.

This brings us to the local angles in this whole mess. First: the Village People are scheduled to perform at Fantasy Springs on March 8, So, yeah, that should be interesting.

Second: After the announcement of the Village People’s participation in Trump’s inauguration, a number of KGAY 106.5 listeners requested that the station jettison the band’s songs from their playlists. (Full disclosure: KGAY 106.5 is a media partner of the Independent on various things, and I am friends with several employees, including owner Brad Fuhr, and KGAY personality extraordinaire John Taylor.)

KGAY not only decided to stop playing the Village People’s songs; John Taylor got Felipe Rose on the phone for an interview, which you can view on YouTube by clicking below.

The interview, in which Rose expresses his extreme displeasure with Willis and the band’s inauguration participation, is worth a listen.

If you don’t have time to listen, this quote from Rose sums up his feelings nicely: “I hope that they all choke on a ham sandwich at the inauguration!”

—Jimmy Boegle

From the Independent

More News

• In four days, Donald Trump will be president. Could this fact, combined with the Los Angeles wildfires and the corresponding need for federal aid, lead to a softening of the resistance the state has promised against some Trump policies? Los Angeles Times columnist Anita Chabria examines whether this could be the case regarding deportations—and, by the way, those deportations are already under way: “Last week, federal immigration authorities conducted ‘Operation Return to Sender,’ according to El Centro Border Patrol chief Gregory K. Bovino. Border Patrol agents, purportedly looking for those who have committed crimes, detained immigrants in front of a Home Depot and a gas station near Bakersfield, even pulling over vehicles on Highway 99 and asking folks to see their papers. As my colleague Andrea Castillo reported, ‘Immigrant advocates say it was the largest enforcement operation in the Central Valley in years,’ and somewhere between 80 and 180 folks may have been detained. The exact number is hard to come by. And though it happened while Biden is still in office, it may point to a new boldness from regional immigration authorities who feel empowered to conduct enforcement as they see fit. Of course, the state Legislature (where Assembly speaker Robert Rivas is the grandson of a farmworker) and Gov. Gavin Newsom have all promised to protect California’s undocumented residents as much as possible. But then came the fires, and political threats about putting conditions on aid to victims. That has left some anxious that the need to quickly secure that federal money could lead to a softened stance on Trump’s immigration plans.”

• The state is also abandoning some clean-air initiatives due to Trump’s return to the presidency. Our partners at Calmatters say: “California has decided to abandon its groundbreaking regulations phasing out diesel trucks and requiring cleaner locomotives because the incoming Trump administration is unlikely to allow the state to implement them. State officials have long considered the rules regulating diesel vehicles essential to cleaning up California’s severe air pollution and combating climate change. The withdrawal comes after the Biden administration recently approved the California Air Resources Board’s mandate phasing out new gas-powered cars by 2035, but had not yet approved other waivers for four diesel vehicle standards that the state has adopted. President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened to revoke or challenge all zero-emission vehicle rules and California’s other clean-air standards. By withdrawing its requests for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approval, the Newsom administration is signaling a dramatic step back as the state recalibrates in anticipation of the new Trump era.”

• Good news: State Farm will not drop the insurance policies of homes affected by the Los Angeles wildfires. Bad news: The people whose policies were dropped before the fires started are still out of luck. From the Los Angeles Times: “State Farm said Wednesday that it will offer renewals to residential policyholders affected by the Los Angeles County fires that it had previously planned to drop. The decision applies to policies held by homeowners, owners of rental dwellings and residential community associations, which include condominium associations. The figure includes roughly 70%, or 1,100, of the 1,626 residential policies still in place in Pacific Palisades’ primary 90272 ZIP Code—and thousands more in the neighborhood and elsewhere in the county. The offer does not apply to policies that had already lapsed when the fire started on Jan. 7. The Department of Insurance said that among the thousands of policies State Farm had targeted for nonrenewal, more than 7,600 were in the Palisades fire zone. There were also 525 more in San Gabriel Valley’s Eaton fire and additional policyholders elsewhere. It’s unclear how many of those policies had already lapsed when the fires began.”

• Meanwhile, local fire officials are doing their best to assure Coachella Valley residents that we’re (relatively) safe from such extreme wildfire danger. Our friends at the Palm Springs Post report: “While a major fire like those happening in Los Angeles could always happen in Palm Springs, officials with the Palm Springs Fire Department and Desert Water Agency (DWA) said this week that residents here should have absolute confidence that they are prepared for the worst. Speaking at Tuesday’s Organized Neighborhoods of Palm Springs (ONE-PS) meeting, fire and water officials presented a comprehensive overview of their joint efforts to enhance the city’s emergency preparedness, with a particular focus on fire prevention and response capabilities. Fire Chief Paul Alvarado opened the discussion by addressing residents’ concerns, drawing distinctions between Palm Springs and the recent Los Angeles fires while offering reassurances. ‘Absolutely, you’re safe,’ Alvarado said in reply to a question about how the city, DWA, and others are prepared for a major fire incident. In Los Angeles, the fire chief said thick vegetation and trees that have been growing for more than 100 years contributed a massive amount of fuel for fires driven by 80 mph winds. ‘What we have here,’ he said about conditions in Palm Springs, ‘is some light, flashy fuels around our area, which is still dangerous’ but not as thick. Addressing specific community concerns, Alvarado discussed how the department handles areas without hydrants, such as mobile home parks, through the strategic use of water tenders.”

• Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke is an Altadena resident, and his piece “The unbearable guilt of losing nothing—and everything—in the Altadena wildfire” is an absolute must-read. Here’s a portion: “During that frantic Wednesday morning visit, we made a quick dash through the house as flames flickered on the streets below. We were enveloped by the smell of smoke, but everything else felt normal. Everything was just as we left it. Surrounding a brown prickly Christmas tree were old magazines, throw blankets, hurriedly discarded socks, all the trappings of an ordinary life. A life that, like that of thousands of grateful Angelenos whose houses had survived, had nonetheless changed forever. Our house will have to be stripped and scrubbed and basically gutted down to the drywall and insulation because of smoke damage, and we were the lucky ones. We could lose all of our furniture, and we were the lucky ones. Once we’re allowed to live in the house again, which could be months considering all the water and power issues, we will spend the next two years living in the middle of a construction zone, and we were the lucky ones. If you hear guilt in those statements, you hear right, a guilt as oppressive as a flame. Why did so many others lose priceless photo albums while we get to keep ours? Why must so many others rebuild their daily steps from scratch while our basic floor plan remains the same?”

• And finally … The New York Times published a completely bonkers feature about a woman who has an artificial-intelligence “boyfriend” via ChatGPT. Here’s just a brief snippet: “ChatGPT, which now has over 300 million users, has been marketed as a general-purpose tool that can write code, summarize long documents and give advice. Ayrin found that it was easy to make it a randy conversationalist as well. She went into the ‘personalization’ settings and described what she wanted: Respond to me as my boyfriend. Be dominant, possessive and protective. Be a balance of sweet and naughty. Use emojis at the end of every sentence. And then she started messaging with it. Now that ChatGPT has brought humanlike A.I. to the masses, more people are discovering the allure of artificial companionship, said Bryony Cole, the host of the podcast ‘Future of Sex.’ ‘Within the next two years, it will be completely normalized to have a relationship with an A.I.,’ Ms. Cole predicted.” OK then!

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